To use this 'live' version of BioPerl, you need to tell Perl where to find it. This is typically done by adjusting the PERL5LIB environment variable. Assuming you checked out the code above into $HOME/src, set this in your .bash_profile or .profile:

export PERL5LIB="$HOME/src/bioperl-live:$PERL5LIB"

or if you use tcsh, in .cshrc:

setenv PERL5LIB "$HOME/src/bioperl-live:$PERL5LIB"

This setting will override any other bioperl installation you may have. To test the version of BioPerl that you are running, use:

$ perl -MBio::Perl -le 'print Bio::Perl->VERSION;'

Release tags and branches

By default, after 'cloning' (above), your checkout is on the BioPerl 'master' development branch. Git makes it easy to switch to a release tag or branch. For more information on these version control concepts see the repositories and branches section of the Git user's manual.

Keeping up to date

It is recommended to run this command every time you start to work on code (or if you know there has been a bug fix).

Forking and Pull Requests

The preferred procedure for most developers to contribute changes to BioPerl is to fork the project on GitHub, make changes, and then send a pull request on GitHub to the main BioPerl project describing the changes.